Welcome to Scotland, oops

I mean La Fontaine

Some ten days ago I was back up in my mountain flat after a very busy two-week period and had fully intended to do nothing more than hike, eat and sleep.

Fate had it otherwise as it was the La Fontaine Festival. A very lively and interacting neighborhood, this isn't even a whole village yet they manage to put together a wonderful and inclusive festival.

The poster announcing the event

This only takes place every two years so I really couldn’t miss it and as it turned out the theme was Scotland I fit in even better as part of my own genealogy involved – on my dad’s side- Scottish ancestors.

The bagpipes played (or did whatever it is that bag pipes do – sometimes I think that whining, moaning, groaning or wailing would be better descriptions) and there were even Highland dances in the afternoon that I didn’t attend having been simply too tired to go back.

A very good group of bagpipe players

  

Not sure if you will be able to hear this, but a snippet.

Even the animals got into the spirit

 Although there was a Scottish stew on the menu, I must admit that my Swiss side won out and I opted for raclette.

He wears a different wig and costume every two years

 It is a very colorful event, attended by the whole area and I did get to talk to many of my acquaintances this way without having to go individually to their chalets – all in all a great way to spend part of the day!

Just one of the seating areas - there were easily a couple hundred people

Date on one of the buildings

 Never mind that they even managed to have a Loch Ness monster in the "lake".

Loch Ness "Monster"

Mascot

Switching continents

Although I haven’t finished the blogs of my Alaska/Canada trip, I am home – and up in the mountains finally enjoying clear skies and a wonderfully sunny day.

This morning I took my usual walk in the woods - admiring as always the flowers in the garden of the last house before the forest.

Pink Peony - as large as it looks!

A huge white peony

light pink one

larger than life

Then after lunch it was go buy my season pass for the cable car and check out the flowers and paths of the upper mountain (the cable car is only working for July/August) while I could.

Mont Blanc on the right as seen from La Creusaz

The Grand Combin through a telescope

La Golette as seen from La Creusaz

It is one of the rare times that I was able to see the wild rhododendrons still in bloom and the blueberries are coming on nicely.

wild small rhodos

alpine flowers

green blueberries

As it’s a Monday I was alone in the cable car and met very few others in the small village at the top – the silence was intriguing – barely any birds to break it and my mood relaxed as I brought back the calm.

First day of Winter, oops

I mean of May.

Which is turning out to be one and the same in any case.

This year has been topsy-turvy and weird all around: no winter to speak of, I think it snowed once at home and certainly didn’t stick, and in recent past we have had horrible, gray, rainy and cold days, interspersed with lovely 20° C days where one would have been forgiven to think that summer was coming early.

I have moved my things back up to the summer rental – so, of course – it is logically that winter followed me, especially since I swapped my winter tires for summer ones just Friday!

Big thick flakes at 6 a.m. this morning made for lovely pictures when I went out mid-morning for a walk: sticking scrupulously to the paved roads – after all the broken bones in my arm are finally solidly knit and I really, really, really, don’t want that to change.

6 a.m. May 1, 2016

This is Spring in the Swiss alps – even at low level as I am at only 1’100 meters.

Magnolia

A cup of snow

Forsythia

Tulips

Purple sticking out of the snow

Snow covering purple flowers

Off the beaten path

Which I could just as well have entitled “detour” or “wandering” or “once again I took the path less traveled”.

Yesterday when I set out for my last weekend in the mountains I had no intended plan other than delivering some flyers on the way. My last stop was just in front of the border at the Café de la Frontière restaurant, run by one of our favorite waiters from years ago at another restaurant. Now although I was just depositing some flyers I wanted to at least say hi (he is the other person who gives hugs as good as my younger son) so peeked into the restaurant instead of just leaving the flyers on the sideboard of the entry. Not only did I get my usual hug, but another of our favorite waitresses from the same restaurant of days past was there having a cocktail before lunch (she now is the manager in yet another restaurant – one that myself and the boys really like, but as they are both less available, we have not yet found the time to go back there). Ah, the beauty of it all – so stopped for some conversation and a tomato juice – after all I was getting on the road, right? She and I made a date for lunch next week.

So it was almost an hour later before I again got in the car and headed on. I didn’t need to stop for lunch as had grabbed a sandwich before stopping with the intent of number one not being tired when I finally drove (big meals see me needing what my husband used to call a “pause”) and number two of not having to stop.

It was another of our glorious fall days so when I had to stop at the traffic light after having passed beautiful fields with rolling mountains still covered in orange and yellow, I made a snap decision and turned right instead of going straight!

A narrow road led through a small village up the hill and through the woods until I came out on a plateau overlooking Lac Léman on the one side and the back country of France on the other: wow would be about the only word that I can use to describe it. I returned through the small village of Ballaison – had always wondered where it was and how it looked when I passed the signs on the lower road, but had never bothered to stop – and continued on my way.

the scenery that had me turning off the main road

I do love my reflections

wandering through the woods

Although not wonderful sites in themselves, the views are extraordinary

The view overlooking the lake

quirky? out in the middle of nowhere someone got clever!

 

Ballaison's church, which I am going to have to go back and explore

the trees lining the road in Evian as I drove through

Vineyards and the mountains still covered in colors!

Today the weather is holding so yet another walk in the woods, yet another train adding color, yet another dip into my past as a child as I shuffled leaves to my heart’s content.

the yellows are predominent now, most of the orange is gone

This bird was re-introduced to the Swiss alps several years ago

I do like fall!

Detours or…

Discovering Marconi

This morning whilst the weather was still decent I headed down the road to go to Salvan as I had a question and the mayor’s office is only open on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons.  Although unable to settle my particular request it did lead to my taking a walk.

One that I should have done years ago, but somehow never got around to doing.

Salvan is where Guglielmo Marconi achieved his first experiments in the wireless transmission of sound.

There is a walk that one can take to the various rocks and sites used for this purpose and if it hadn’t been for the parcoursvita (a sort of path that combines various exercise elements for strength, endurance and flexibility) that was halfway around, it truly would have taken only 30 to 40 minutes, as advertised.

Imagine the longest distance he achieved was in between Salvan and the small village where I rent in the summers Les Marécottes. The fall colors are going to be much better than in “normal” years, thanks to the extreme heat and lack of rain this past summer – there are even some reds!

All goes to show that even the tiniest of villages or spots also have their own interest or claim to fame. The church also has a wooden plaque honoring the Swiss chef that went down with the Titanic.

View from the "Bergère" rock

View from the "Bergère" rock

towards the mountains from the Age d'Or

Detail from the top right corner of the preceding photo

Plaque from the ITU attesting to Marconi's work here in 1895

Another plaque from the IEEE about Marconi's experiments

through one of the telescopes

through one of the telescopes

Just some of the fall colors to be enjoyed this morning

Entertaining visitors…one

Now we all know that I travel a lot, but some of you also know that occasionally I also enjoy receiving visitors from outside of Switzerland: that means playing tour guide, or at least showing whomever I am hosting the local highlights.

The Vevey pulling into the dock at St. Gingolph

So Thursday it was off to Martigny for a couple of nights in Les Marécottes – where I hang out in the summer.

F showed up from the USA (o.k. California to be exact) on an earlier train, but we managed to find each other without an error in spite of his not having a workable cell phone. I had gotten there a bit early as well and happily read one of the newspapers that had gotten laid to the side whilst I was gallivanting around a week earlier: he had a beer in one of the coffee shops across the street.

As the weather was good – and bad weather (really bad) foreseen for the next day, I decided that after lunch (one of my favorite Italian restaurants in Martigny) we should concentrate on anything outdoors just to make sure we were able to walk a bit.

Church steeple so old that the trees are growing out of it.

Wandered with the car back to the rest stop on the freeway with its artificial lakes and wind surfers, parking on the back side in order to also take in the fruit trees and especially the huge wind machine (for want of the correct word) in the middle of the agricultural plots.

98 meters high - ENERCON E-82

Then it was up the hill, stopping at the Gueuroz Bridge for a look back down the Trient Gorges. The Gueuroz Bridge held the record for the highest bridge in Europe for 29 years from the time it was built in 1931-1934 (187 meters) until the Europabrücke was finished in Austria in 1963. Now it is well down on the list.

an old avalanche "tunnel"

beehives on the hill

After passing through Salvan (famous for the fact the Marconi did some of his research here; the church also has a wooden plate honoring the cook who went down with the Titanic) we drove through the village of Les Marécottes then continued on to the farthest one reachable by car – Trétien as well as stopping for coffee at the newly opened Zoo and Alpine Pool. Under new management as of May 14^th they were full and I hope that they do well. Two sons have taken it over with the help of their retired father: we wish them only success! http://www.valleedutrient-vallorcine.com/data/documents/brochures/VTTInfos/vtt_journal_info_09.pdf

The train that goes from Martigny to Chamonix in France

Having seen a great deal and enjoyed the warmth and sun it was off to the Café Central and their crepes for dinner. A well-spent day of not-quite-the-usual tourism.